


Meat

by Bur



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 02:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bur/pseuds/Bur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Christa looks at her meal all she can see is death.  (Post Trost)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meat

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the SnK Kink Meme on Dreamwidth for a request for anything Ymir/Christa. C&C is very welcome!

“Not hungry?”

Christa didn’t look up from her plate as Ymir stepped over the bench and sat lightly beside her. She didn’t want to see the measuring look the tall girl would be giving her, like there were expectations that Christa wasn’t quite living up to. And she _would_ , but Christa had no idea what Ymir wanted from her.

“Not eating’s not going to help anyone, you know,” Ymir continued.

They’d gotten meat that night, a proper stew with chunks of deer they could actually see. With half the trainees gone, dead or too injured to make it to the mess, for once there was enough to go around. A treat for surviving their first encounter with the titans. A celebration for reclaiming territory. It struck her as something like a cruel joke, but Christa could hear everyone else eating like it wasn’t a problem for them at all. Was it really just her? Was she the only one who couldn’t even eat a single bite?

When Christa looked at her fork she didn’t see a tough piece of stewed deer. There was a trainee on it. A piece of their leg, or maybe their arm. Who was it? Thomas, Mina, Marco? There were too many who hadn’t made it back, too many it could be. During clean-up some had even--

Her stomach clenched and she tasted bile in the back of her throat. It was too much. Everything was too much. Christa put her fork down and pushed the plate over to Ymir. She needed more food than her anyways. “You can have it,” Christa said, and was surprised at how steady her voice was.

Ymir sighed heavily and Christa looked up at her to see that look on Ymir’s face. The one she’d been avoiding. It was disappointment, disapproval, and confusion; or maybe it was none of these at all. Ymir could be frustratingly hard to read even after three years of practically living in each others pockets.

“Is this all anything really is in the end?” Christa asked.

The look she got now was definitely confusion. The way her eyebrows bunched and her mouth pulled down in a frowning sort of sneer was as well-worn as the spine of an old book. “What are you going on about?”

Christa had to look away as Ymir began to eat from her own dish. “Everything that’s alive becomes someone else’s food. That’s all we are, all of us.”

Ymir swallowed, scooped up more stew onto her fork. “Well, yeah, if you want to get dumb about it. Even if we don’t get eaten by the titans, the maggots will get us.” She picked up the roll from Christa’s plate, its crust stained with gravy, and pushed it into her hand. “You need to eat something. You’ll get sick, and then what will you do?”

Christa picked at it, dug out a piece of the soft interior and put it in her mouth. She didn’t even taste it. “We’re kind of like titans. We may not eat other humans, but we destroy them all the same. Use them up, like they’re nothing but meat.”

“But isn’t that all we are?” Ymir asked. “You just said so yourself.” Christa turned her head to look at her, but Ymir was facing a group of trainees who were laughing just a little too loudly. It almost sounded like sobs. “We’re soldiers, here to die for the advancement of humanity.” Ymir looked back at her and Christa felt pinned. “That’s why you signed up. To be a piece of meat for a cause.”

“Not like this.” Christa frowned and dug out another piece of soft bread from beneath its crust. “It wasn’t to die like this. I don’t want--” Don’t want to be in one of those regurgitated piles, nameless and forgotten with no one knowing if she’d been of any use at all. That would be the worst of it.

A line of warmth pressed itself against her and Christa looked to see Ymir’s leg pressed flush against her own. “You’re still alive, so forget about all of that.” Ymir’s face was close to hers, far too close. Christa couldn’t look away and she wondered if this is what a rabbit felt like when it could see its death coming. What her comrades had felt looking into the eyes of a titan they couldn’t avoid.

As her mouth fell open in a stuttering breath she felt something push into it, greasy and too many herbs because no one was going to waste salt on trainees. It tasted good. It tasted good and she wanted more. Christa hiccuped and fought the tears she could feel building in her eyes.

Ymir wiped her fingers on her pants before resting her hand on Christa’s shoulder. “Just join the military police. You won’t have to fight them again.”

Christa shook her head. How could she do that? The MPs were useless. There was no dying honorably with them, just a place to stay for the self-serving. An inexorable path towards corruption. No, the military police was not the place for her. At the moment, though, she very much wished it could have been.

She pressed her face into Ymir’s arm and tried to block out the world. Just for a moment until she could find her center again.

“All right, all right.” Ymir’s voice was soft, like she was talking to a horse about to bolt. “Go where you want.” Christa felt the muscles of Ymir’s arm shift and stretch. “Just finish your dinner before you get any smaller.”

Christa moved her face from Ymir’s arm when something bumped into her hands, still holding onto the crust of her bread like it was all that was anchoring her there. Ymir had pushed her plate back to her. The taste of meat lingered in her mouth.

It was deer, she told herself as she dipped a piece of her crust in the gravy. It was a deer, not her friends. If she just closed her eyes she wouldn’t see the meat. If she just focused on how warm Ymir was -- how could a person even be that warm -- she didn’t even have to think about it.

Christa brought it to her mouth and took a careful bite. It was delicious.


End file.
